


In the Harsh Light of Day

by JustAnotherUnderstudy



Series: Original Work (How Original) [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, School Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:27:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26452573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAnotherUnderstudy/pseuds/JustAnotherUnderstudy
Summary: Hollywood loves rosy endings. Maybe because they don't have to have any of their own.
Series: Original Work (How Original) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1922893
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4





	In the Harsh Light of Day

**Author's Note:**

> So, to the three people who might read this, lol. This is what I submitted for the assignment I alluded to in that smut piece this morning.

Daniel stared out the window of his 35th floor office and the scene beneath him, the people, the cars, all so little and far away. He could see that many were exiting his own building and making straight shots to bus stops, the subway entrance, or the bars down the street. He wondered how many of them heading to the bars were his employees.

It wasn't easy to work for him, or so he’d been told and overheard many times. People did, but if they could find better, they did that too. He would chuckle as he read their letters of resignation. Did people honestly believe that somewhere there was a businessman not like him? Did they think other owners and CEOs concerned themselves with their employees well-being outside of work?

Daniel blamed Dale Carnegie and all those great men of old who made millions on the backs of virtual slave labor, yet gave millions in endowments to offset their guilt. Daniel felt no guilt in his business. It was a dog eat dog world in corporate America. If his employees couldn’t understand that, they were welcome to go to work for someone else. Or whatever else they wanted to do off the clock to make themselves fit to come into the office the next day and continue to add to the company’s coffers.

Finally it was dark enough that all he could see were the lights reflecting off the other Manhattan buildings. He turned away from the glass and walked to his desk to organize it for tomorrow and prepare to leave.

His secretary had left an hour earlier. Unless there was a crisis he couldn’t see paying her to stay as late as he did. In fact, the floor was empty. He looked at his watch and finally registered just how late it was. His wife was certain to be angry with him again. She didn’t understand either. She liked her country club tennis and their children’s expensive private schools, her fine cars and clothes, but she couldn’t see all the work that was required for those things.

Lately, she had begun to argue they’d had enough money several millions ago. And that couldn’t he see that he didn’t know the first thing about their children? He’d retorted that he knew at least what their children needed and those were the things his business provided them.

As he watched the numbers over the lift go up as he waited, he could faintly hear a voice which became louder and louder as the lift approached his floor. Finally, the bell pinged its arrival and he could hear the voice verbatim. A woman’s voice, and very angry at that. But there was no reply to her yelled questions so Danial assumed she must be on the phone.

The doors slid open and revealed two women, both in their maid uniforms. One standing behind the cleaning cart, the other toward the front. The one in front was the loud one. She was turned away from the door and did not see Daniel at all. As she continued to berate her companion, she backed out of the lift and nearly stepped into Daniel who moved only slightly out of her way.

“Oh, I’m terribly sorry, sir,” she said, suddenly kind. “I didn’t expect anyone to be up here this late.”

Daniel merely stared at her as she quickly pulled her companion and the cart away from him. He watched them as he entered the elevator and heard the woman clearly as she hissed to the other, “See what you made me do. You stupid woman. What is wrong with you?”

The doors closed and in the silence the question echoed in Daniel’s mind. What was wrong with her? He had watched her as she had looked at him with surprise when the doors slid open. If her companion had been paying attention and not so busy with her verbal attack, she would have noticed it.

What was wrong with her indeed.

He knew. Daniel saw it all in the silent woman’s eyes. There was an innocence in the middle of her slightly flabby and aging face that told him everything he needed to know about “what was wrong with” her.

He found his eyes were rapidly blinking, trying to hold back an unbidden moisture. When he looked at his reflection in the polished doors, he saw the woman looking back. Her brown eyes slowly transitioned to blue and her timid frown into a smile that revealed crooked teeth.

Daniel averted his eyes and took several deep breaths to calm himself as he approached street level. When the door slid open, he was composed and made his way quickly across the lobby toward the front door. The night watchman opened the door and bade him goodnight. Daniel nodded wordlessly again, but didn’t notice the surprise on the man’s face. Daniel had never acknowledged him before.

The driver had the car waiting and was opening the door for him to enter the backseat. Daniel mumbled his thanks, eliciting another pair of raised brows. He set his case on the seat next to him. It contained more work he needed to take care of but it all lay dormant as Daniel stared blankly at the back of the front seat.

What was wrong with her?

_ “Your sister is a freak,” the other children were laughing but all Daniel noticed was his older sister crying at the cafeteria table. _

_ The teachers were coming his way, he would be told later, but he never saw them, not until Principal Markham was pulling his little six year old body out of the pile of children where his fists were making contact with anyone and everyone, even the noon aid. _

* * *

_ “It would be better for everyone if she was in a place where people could take care of her,” his father’s voice was slowly drowned out by Daniel’s erupting anger. _

_ “That’s bullshit,” he swore at his father. “You’re just sending her away because you are like everyone else. You don’t even love her.” _

_ Before his parents could respond, he was running out the door. He jumped onto his bike and peddled as quickly as he could toward the town. When he reached the arcade, he chained his bike with the others by the front door and headed inside. _

_ There was something about him that made the other kids step quickly out of his way as he stalked toward the Galaga game. He was already big for 13, and when he was angry, everyone knew to steer clear. _

* * *

_ “Your sister’s had a heart attack,” his mother's voice shook over the line. _

_ Daniel hung up the phone without asking any questions. He picked up his jacket and wallet. _

_ “Where are you going?” His girlfriend asked. _

_ He didn’t answer, just walked out the door as the phone began to ring again. _

_ Daniel arrived too late. He hadn’t seen her since Christmas, and now he would never see her again. _

_ The church service was the stereotypical “come to Jesus” thing. Not much was said about his sister. As he looked around the church he knew it was because no one there had ever cared. These were the people whose children teased her at school. These were the people who told his parents to send her away. _

_ When the pastor came over to talk to his family, he had a huge smile on his face. He grabbed Daniel’s hand un-offered and shook it gregariously. _

_ “Don’t worry, son,” he laughed. “She’s perfect now.” _

_ Daniel jerked his hand away. _

_ “Fuck you,” he said. “She was always perfect.” _

_ He turned and walked away, went back to the city and finished grad school, then worked his way from the stock market floor to the 35th floor. He’d never gone back. Never invited his parents to his graduation. He only invited them to his wedding at his wife’s insistence. _

He had learned everything he ever needed to know about life from his “mildly retarded” sister. People hate weakness. People abuse the weak. People shun the weak.

He would never be any of those things. Not now, not ever.

* * *

When Daniel the elevator doors opened to reveal his employees to him the next morning he noted how people picked up the pace of their work immediately and smiled grimly.

“Is the cleaning crew contracted by the building’s management or is it an in house work?” He asked his secretary as she attempted to hand him his messages.

Her mouth opened slightly in surprise before she recovered.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“I need to know, now,” he said.

“Is there a problem?” She asked.

He ignored her and took the messages into his office and closed the door.

He had the information five minutes later. But what to do with it? Why had he even asked for it? Was he thinking of helping that woman? Her family? What if her family was like his parents and grandparents who had always viewed his sister as a curse?

Daniel felt the anger rush through him again. He wasn’t six and even if he was, there was no one to physically take his anger out on. The problem was too big. Society hated the weak. He was only one man. He hadn’t even been able to convince his parents to love their own daughter, how could he expect to change an entire culture that had been built on the oppression of the weak?

He chuckled as he imagined some Hollywood ending. The evil and corrupt businessman having a change of heart and leaving it all behind to give his life in service to the less fortunate.

But his sister had taught him how reality worked. Reality made it clear that the rich gave their money to their Alma Mater. They had buildings named after them. The very rich gained the privilege of telling small countries how to manage their people. The rich didn’t give their money where it was truly needed, they gave it where they could gain attention and adulation.

He took the paper with the phone number of the cleaning company in both hands and tore the top part. But something stopped him from ripping it in half. Daniel sighed and set it down on the desk again. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a photograph he’d dug out of his private home safe.

His sister’s sixth grade school picture. She’d had him put all the flowers they could pick off the school grass at first recess into her hair. She’d run into the bathroom and come out and told him she looked beautiful. Daniel had agreed. Then she’d scurried off to class. When they’d arrived home their mother screamed.

_ “It was school picture day,” she hollered. “Tell me you didn’t have all those flowers in your hair for the picture.” _

_ Lacy looked confused by her mother’s anger. Daniel took his place between them, pulled himself up to his full four feet in height. _

_ “She looks beautiful,” he said. _

_ And only because it was his mother did his fists not fly toward her. _

He turned in his chair and stared out across the city. The buildings glistened in the late morning light. Inside them, the power of the world was being meted and traded and transformed. Just as it was in the office behind him.

It was this power Daniel had craved. The ability to never appear weak, to never be taken advantage of.

For the first time since he walked out of that church thirty years ago, Daniel wanted to run and never look back. The noises that seeped through his door, the phone calls, the conversations, all of it was nothing more than a cacophony of emptiness to him.

This job, the title he’d gained, and the power that went with it, meant freedom. But now it felt like it was only a chain holding him back from escape. To where, though, and for what reason? He had run the last time to gain everything he had hoped, that power that would keep him safe. But now, even that power had suddenly become an oppression.

He felt that he had come unexpectedly to a crossroads and that the sign that had always pointed him in the next direction had been taken away and now he wasn’t sure what he should do.

He cursed and shook his head. He was too old for change. Hell, he was too old to have a midlife crisis now. Even that time had passed.

His intercom buzzed.

“Mr. Hastings is on the line from San Francisco about the Werner deal,” his secretary informed him.

He looked at his desk phone and the blinking light.

“Alright,” he said.

He glanced at the photo and the number briefly, then stuck them into his shirt pocket before picking up the phone.

“Hastings,” he said, his head clearing. “Tell me you got those German bastards to agree to the deal.”

There was no place for weakness in this world. He couldn’t allow himself to give in for a moment lest he become one of those who were cast out and shunned by society. He had promised himself that years ago and he was not going to renege today.


End file.
